Are you ready to ESCAPE to a life where you are making money doing what you love? Here is your ESCAPE Plan…
As co-hosts for the Paycheck to Passion podcast, we have listened as dozens of entrepreneurs share their stories on how they make money through their passions. We noticed that many common themes running through all their success stories. Although their businesses were vastly different from each other’s, they all followed similar steps on the path to success.
We also noticed that creating your business at the 40,000 foot level, making day to day tweaks is easier because instead of being random they will be moving you in the direction of success.
So, are you ready to ESCAPE? Here’s your plan:
E = Explore
The very first step in our process is exploration. You need to decide (in general) what you would like to do as a business. At this point, you can be as impractical as you like. Just think about, and write down, EVERYTHING you think you would like to do. From Aerobic Hula Hooping Coach to Zoo Animal Therapist – anything is fair game.
S = Serve
The next step in the ESCAPE plan is to pay attention to what customers are actually willing to pay for. (Note: You may need to re-think that Aerobic Hula Hooping Coaching idea).
Imagine a diagram with two circles that slightly overlap – on one side is your zone of brilliance – on the other side is what the market really wants. Where the two zones intersect is where you need to focus your service or product. So how do you find that?
You find it through market research and through finding a community to help you create your products. By seeking other people’s input early and often, not only will you create a better product, you will have a built-in group of raving fans to become your early adopters.
C = Create
When you have done that, the next part of the plan is the actual creation of your products. This is the first phase in the construction of your platform. This includes the writing of your manifesto – here are the things that we believe in, and here’s how we can help you. At first you might not even have a pay product. You might just have an opt-in to build your mailing list. You might have a free e-book or free video, or something that people can sign up to get – something that will help people get to know you better.
Whether you are offering a product or a service you need to create a signature system that is totally yours – a step by step process that people go through to get the offering you provide. For example, our signature system is the ESCAPE Plan. But even if you own a restaurant you still have your own way that you like to serve your customers – you have a vibe, or a particular atmosphere or ambiance that you want your restaurant to be known for. Finding out what all those elements are is all part of the creation phase.
The creation phase is also getting the infrastructure in place to start making money. This includes creating your website, hooking up to PayPal or a merchant account so you can take money, setting up your e-mail autoresponder, etc. It is the equivalent of opening up your brick and mortar store.
A = Amplify
The ‘Amplify’ phase starts just as soon as you start letting the world know about you and the services you offer. You can have the most beautiful website in the world, but unless people can find you, you won’t have any customers or make any money.
The Amplify chapter is all about building that megaphone (we call it a platform). The good news is that, if you follow the advice we give in the chapter, you can reduce the time you spend on marketing by reusing and recycling the content that you have already created.
P = Perfect
A lot of businesses achieve early success only to find that they can’t handle any more than three clients. You should think about perfecting your processes and systems from the very beginning as it will make it easier for you to move your business up to the next level later on.
In order to perfect your processes and systems you need to know what to measure in terms of the success of your marketing and amplification efforts, how to measure what kind of results you are getting for your clients, and how to tell whether or not your signature system is working. How much money are you making? Are you making money with this system? And if you scale it, will it make more money as a percentage or less? What are your margins? Although Solo Biz Hacking takes place during all phases of the ESCAPE plan – it is especially important during the perfect phase.
In order to create, monitor and improve your systems you need to use project management tools. You need to have processes in place so that when you add people to your team they don’t have to read your mind to know what to do, it’s all laid out for them.
The other part is in getting feedback and referrals from your customers. From the very beginning you need to build into your system a method of customer evaluation of your offerings, and a way to obtain referrals. Every time your client takes a class you need to send out an evaluation questionnaire – How was it? What can we change? What was its worth? What would you have liked us to cover that we didn’t cover? And – Do you have you any friends who you think might benefit from this?
Testimonials are especially important in online marketing because they act as social proof. People are much more likely to hire someone that somebody recommended to them by someone they know.
E = Expand
The final phase of our ESCAPE Plan is expansion. Expansion is all about exponentially increasing your business through the adding of more team members, the adding of more products, the refining of systems, the creation of partnerships and joint ventures, and so on. If you don’t have the system ready to handle that increase in volume then it cannot take place. You need to think about where you want to take your business right from the very beginning.
Want more? Buy our book The ESCAPE Plan: 6 Steps to Leaving the Job You Hate by Creating a Business You Love